MOTL(Magic Online Traders League) is still going on, granted it has died down a lot from its heyday as well, but you may still be able to find some good stuff there. Pucatrade seems to be on its way out, so I would personally avoid that one.

I feel that for any tokens build looking to splash green, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar needs to be considered. Not sure if you already checked her out or not but a big way to grow tokens on top of Gavony Township.

So, from what I can tell, it looks like aftermath cards, such as Start // Finish, are just the part being cast while on the stack but are both colors elsewhere. So, my question is, does that mean that I can target a Stormbreath Dragon with the Finish side of Start // Finish or not?

I get that in general Sorin, Solemn Visitor is better in our deck because it buffs our tokens up to insane ammounts and helps stabilize in the aggressive matchups, but on an empty board Gideon seems way more impactful. His token ability doesn't cost any loyality and he can put our opponents on quite the fast clock all by himself.

Recently I´ve seen these B/W Smallpox lists do really well and they play 3 or even 4 Gideons. It made me think about why almost all our lists only play 1 or even 0.

What are your thoughts on this?

Sure, you can run more than one Gideon. I run two (as well as two Sorin). You just get to the question of balance. How many four drops can you afford to have in the deck and not get too many too often? It is generally considered 3-4 in a 23 land build but could be more for a 24 land build. Then you just have to decide what amount of Gideon vs. Sorin you want. Sorin is generally considered a better fit for our deck (hence why you see lists with more or only Sorins) but I love Gideon in it as well. I split 2-2 for my build (23 lands)

New guy here, I've played maybe 30 matches with stompy on xmage and just bought the cards for it. Next weeks FNM will be the first time playing it on paper.

My LGS is notoriously burn-heavy. 4 Feed the Clan on the sideboard seem to be the usual plan, but do you have any tips on how to configure the main deck for that? Is Scavenging Ooze actually good against burn? The life gain seems too slow to matter and it needs something to eat before it can survive any blocking. Maindecking Dismember seems bad for that meta, should I try Prey Upon or something like that? Some people here seem to be even playing no maindeck removal at all (The Ceaseless Hunger's list above for example), how's that working out for you?

You definitely want the Scavenging oozes in a burn heavy meta. They generally have goblin guides, monastery swiftspears, Eidolon of the great revels, and Grim Lavamancers and they want to be aggressive with them. Those plus searing blaze will get creatures into graveyards for sure and then they will sometimes use bolts on creatures as well. Every little bit of life gain helps as there will be games when we survive with 1 or 2 life or die by 1 or 2 life and oozes can make that difference. Then, with the Lavamancers we are able to disrupt their ability by removing their fuel. Oozes are just good in a lot of matchups.

Yeah, i think that is wrong with magic today. In the old days, if you didn´t have a card, you substituted it with something else. You played with the cards you actually had. Now you cry for bannings or reprints.

The reason is deckbuilding. It used to be part of the skill as a magic player to build your own decks. Nowadays, most people just play whatever list won the last big event, and then cry about card prices because everyone else want to get those exact cards, too.

I feel it's less an issue of this and more an issue of these days certain cards are made very easily better than others and you can't just slot something in instead and it work as well or even close to as well. I feel like the line between allstar cards and "good" cards has gotten much wider over the years. Not every card has to be amazing but there needs to be a certain amount at close to the same playable power level (In different rarities) to be able to effectively have the option to innovate decks when someone doesn't have all of the cards. Otherwise they will lose over and over and decide to go with the few cards that clearly work.

Is it too many basics or too few and what split should I be running with my associated costs?

Don't run more basics cause of Moon, just remember to fetch them after your first Black source. I run 3 Plains, 1 Swamp and have been locked by BM exactly once simply because I didn't have a basic/fetch yet that game. Fetch basics, don't forget you can Path a token EoT/Response to go find a basic.

Sorry, I forgot to mention there is also a Ponza (Land Destruct along with Blood Moon) guy running around. Would that change it much?

Yeah, I was kinda leaning that way. I think that I will run a Murderous Cut in the main in place of one fatal push as long as that deck is in the meta. I would like to try lili, but I don't own any and they are not currently in the budget. I did however pick up a runed halo afterwards, with my winnings, and am excited to try that in the side. With those plus the 2 blessed alliances in the side, I think I should have decent options against both it and the Blood Baron if it happens to show its face.

I played in a small 8 man FNM last weekend and beat Grixis Shadow 2-0, Jund 2-0 and split with the only other undefeated guy, who was running Skred Red. We played for fun anyway and I lost 1-2. Stormbreath Dragon is hard to handle with this deck, especially when he also has a mixture of 5 sweepers in Kozilek's Return and Anger of the Gods Mainboard to deal with my black flyers. He got one of his 2 dragons each game that I lost and I drew almost none of my sideboard cards including Blessed Alliance which was my only true answer. Had never played against it before and it was fun and a learning experience for sure. Fun times.